Nicola Bruno mi ha intervistato ieri per il Manifesto per parlare di Facebook, la censura dei contenuti pubblicati su Internet, e gli eventi di attualita’ politica degli utlimi giorni – l’intervista e’ pubblicata sul Manifesto del 15/12/2009: «Facebook che istiga all’odio? Mi sembra solo un’esagerazione che dimostra una totale mancanza di cultura digitale. Quello che succede online non è altro che la fotocopia della vita politica di un paese. Ci possono essere espressioni forti, ma per lo più più si tratta di semplice condivisione estemporanea di opinioni, come nelle chiacchiere da bar. Non c’è bisogno di nessun oscuramento». […]
Category: Censorship and filtering
E tu, non provi Herdict?
[youtube width=”315″ height=”235″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4omD0j_e0k[/youtube]
La Pecora Bianca presenta Herdict, uno straordinario nuovo sito che aiuta gli utenti a riprendere controllo della Rete. Hai problemi con siti in parte o del tutto inaccessibili? Prova ad usare Herdict su: http://herdict.org.
Herdict.org e’ un progetto del Berkman Center for Internet & Society, all’Universita’ di Harvard, ideato da Jonathan Zittrain e dalla OpenNet Initiative (ONI) che permette agli utenti di Internet di tutto il mondo di raccogliere e condividere segnalazioni di malfunzionamenti e blocchi volontari di diversi siti o pagine Web. Per ulteriori informazioni, leggi: “Herdict, la Mappa Mondiale della Censura“.
Am I the only one being blocked?
[youtube width=”315″ height=”235″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NggzBHSXdCo[/youtube]
Today, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University has officially launched: http://www.herdict.org — a tool that employs the distributed power of the Internet community to provide insight into what users around the world are experiencing in terms of web accessibility.
Everyone is invited to explore http://www.herdict.org and participate by reporting websites that they cannot access, testing sites that others have reported, or downloading the browser add-on for reporting sites on the fly. Herdict Web aggregates reports in real time, permitting participants to see if inaccessibility is a shared problem, giving them a better sense of potential reasons for why a site is inaccessible. Trends can be viewed over time, by site and by country.
Internet censorship arrives in Italy
[youtube width=”315″ height=”235″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLsyLEwIFVc[/youtube]
In an effort to regulate the Internet, as part of a package of laws to safeguard national security, the Italian Government has recently proposed an amendment which in practice – if approved – would oblige all Italian ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to block a site (be this a website, a blog or a social media site such as Facebook or Youtube) where material has been posted which is believed to defend or instigate a crime [Bloomberg’s reporting the news here].
This amendment does not talk about merely deleting the material which is believed to be criminal/illegal but about filtering/blocking/blacking out/preventing access to the entire website if the manager of the site did not take down such material. For example, if Facebook did not shut down groups such as the ones which have recently come to the spotlight for praising Mafia bosses, Italian ISPs would be in fact obliged to block access to the whole of Facebook, or be fined (from 50,000 to 250,000 Euros).
The decision of whether such material is in fact illegal would not go to the Courts of Law but would be taken directly by the Minister of the Interior, with no opportunity for trial in front of Magistrates. The amendment has already been approved by the Senate and is waiting to be discussed at the Chamber of Deputies.
Commentators from blogger Beppe Grillo to Italian politician Antonio di Pietro have voiced their protests against this amendment which – if it becomes law – would in fact curtail freedom of expression — and potentially allow the shutting down of thousands of voices on the Web. According to di Pietro [English version here] the amendment is unconstitutional and anti-democratic thereby putting Italy in the same situation of countries such as China and Burma where Internet filtering is widespread. In his blog Beppe Grillo reports an interview with Senator D’Alia [English version here] where the Senator explains how the amendment would in fact work.
A group has been created on Facebook against this amendment – where materials such as editorials and comments can be found – for more information see also: http://www.baoad.it/facebook-censored/.
CONTRO LA CENSURA DELLA RETE E DI FACEBOOK
Italy and the end of the Internet?
The Italian Government has recently proposed a draft law aimed at reorganising the legislation of the publishing sector, which requires every citizen engaging in publishing and editorial activities to register them with a central registry. This law covers different media, including the Internet, in practice requiring every Internet user who posts information online (thus carrying out “publishing and editorial activity”) to register their blogs and websites with such a registry. This law would in fact identify bloggers as professional publishers/journalists – thus, bloggers who fail to register would in theory be liable to incur into heavy penalties such as for example defamation.
As news of the draft law have started to circulate, thousands of angry reactions have been flooding into two of the most popular Italian blogs: Beppe Grillo’s blog and Minister Antonio Di Pietro’s blog (one of the first and most active politician bloggers) protesting that the passing of such a law, far from being a mere bureaucratic formality, would in fact mean the end of the free Internet in Italy. Government officials have clarified that such a law would not apply to personal blogs and amateur sites, but no clear guidelines have been stated so far to qualify what counts as a personal vs. professional blog.
The original text of the draft law can be found here [Italian only].
Update: Minister of Communications Paolo Gentiloni on his blog has just commented on the draft law stating that the law should not apply to blogs and personal websites, but only to online professional publishers, such as big online newspapers. This draft law will have to be discussed in Parliament and several parties, from the Greens to Di Pietro’s Italia dei Valori party, have promised to oppose such a law.